What's in a name?

Over the years I had forgotten just how many people still refer to me by a nickname. The nickname list is long and a good number of them I can actually repeat without offending my grandmother. There’s Big D, or simply D, Flemster, Fleminator, Flem-bone, and even Phlegm. Yes…I know…Phlegm. I realize that the word Phlegm doesn't always conjure up the most positive of mental images. However, in this context it is less a reference to viscous respiratory secretions and more a play on my long running and most popular nickname of "Flem".

Last week at my 8 year-old son Jake's football game the opposing coach happened to be my best friend Jon from High School. Before battle we met at the middle of the field, he stuck out his hand and said, "Good luck Flem". I returned the gesture and casually walked to the sideline. My son had overheard this exchange and asked me after the game, "Why did the other coach call you Flem?" I explained to him that it happened to be my nickname in high school and the coach was just referring to me the way most people referred to me back in the days of $1 gas. His question prompted me to think back at the origin, evolution, and history of my various nicknames.

In 1986 I was a freshman at a small private school. Enrollment was no more than 300 students on any given year and…..well…… not exactly what you would call "diverse". In fact 95% of the student body was upper middle class white kids. The remaining 5% were made up of delinquents whose parents thought private school would keep their kid out of prison, a few upper middle class non-whites, and the token inner-city scholarship kid so the basketball team wouldn't go 0-25 every season. I happened to represent the delinquents in the 5% category. We couldn't really afford private school but my parents probably looked at it as more of an investment strategy than anything else. The strategy being that the private schooling and the tuition that went along with it would save them from the imminent legal bills necessary to keep their son from being someone’s girlfriend in prison the rest of his life. So far so good.

1986 was a watershed year for diversity and the school found itself with two inner city scholarship beneficiaries, Noel and Gooch. Noel and Gooch were both seniors and brought with them a style, attitude, and swagger that was sorely missing in their fair skinned counterparts. Over time I grew rather fond of Noel and Gooch and they seemed to take a liking to me as well. I was a freshman and to them (since we're already liberally using inappropriate stereotypes) I was the big corn-fed, rhythmically challenged, stone-shoed white guy. Luckily I was just talented enough to endear myself to them and was soon a frequent mention in their almost continuous on-court trash-talk.

That season I learned three time-honored and critical trash-talking rules. #1: You must get as many words into a sentence as possible, #2: Once you start trash-talk you can not stop lest you allow your target an opportunity to engage. #3: You can add "dog" to any word or phrase and it immediately becomes correct and proper urban trash-talk. So to Noel and Gooch I became "Flem-dog" and use of the nickname in various forms continued including the oft-used "flem", fleming, flem-bone, flemster, and of course “Phlegm”. Strangely it appears the tradition will live on. Yesterday I dropped off my son at his mom's house. We walked up to the door and exchanged the usual goodbyes and I love you's. He gives me a big hug, looks at me and says, "See you tomorrow Flem".